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Mass Effect 2 is a fantastic game. Maybe you don't like it, but that is your opinion, and its a goose opinion because regardless of how much you personally dislike a game, you cannot disregard such an overwhelming majority opinion.

By that logic the Oscar for Best Picture would go to something like Transformers: Rise of the Fallen and Two and a Half Men would count as sophisticated literature. Just because a majority likes something does not make it de facto high quality.

Bingo.
Majority opinions mean precisely sod all.

I'm not saying ME2 was bad, mind you, I'm saying it wasn't game of the year material by a long, long stretch, especially not in a year as strong on innovation and imagination as the one we've just had.

Yeah, plenty of people disliked RDR and ME2 for what I'm sure were legitimate reasons.

And plenty of people liked the games for legitimate reasons too.

It surprises me that we've had the GotY thread for how many years now and people still don't get the concept that people will vote for games that they enjoyed and the more they enjoyed the game, the higher it will be.

It surprises me that we've had the GotY thread for how many years now and people still don't get the concept that people will vote for games that they enjoyed and the more they enjoyed the game, the higher it will be.

That's not what it's about, but rather that "but a lot of other people like it too!" is a very juvenile argument for justifying your opinions. It basically stops any discussion dead in its tracks because you are no longer discussing the actual merits of the game but rather something that is extraneous to it. If that were the main argument then CODBLOPS should be numer one on every critical list of 2010.

It surprises me that we've had the GotY thread for how many years now and people still don't get the concept that people will vote for games that they enjoyed and the more they enjoyed the game, the higher it will be.

That's not what it's about, but rather that "but a lot of other people like it too!" is a very juvenile argument for justifying your opinions. It basically stops any discussion dead in its tracks because you are no longer discussing the actual merits of the game but rather something that is extraneous to it. If that were the main argument then CODBLOPS should be numer one on every critical list of 2010.

...And I could say that arguing that a game should have placed 1st because of an arbitrary subset of qualifiers you've set up in your head is just as silly.

As the thread has shown us for many years now, people vote for games for many reasons.

Whether it be simply how much they enjoyed a game, what the game did, how much "value" they got out of a game, and so forth. That's why we don't get "CODBLOPS in the number one slot" as you say.

And honestly, I can't say that one is more important than other. And I think it is actually nice to get a look at how different people judge quality.

Mass Effect 2 is a fantastic game. Maybe you don't like it, but that is your opinion, and its a goose opinion because regardless of how much you personally dislike a game, you cannot disregard such an overwhelming majority opinion.

By that logic the Oscar for Best Picture would go to something like Transformers: Rise of the Fallen and Two and a Half Men would count as sophisticated literature. Just because a majority likes something does not make it de facto high quality.

Bingo.
Majority opinions mean precisely sod all.

I'm not saying ME2 was bad, mind you, I'm saying it wasn't game of the year material by a long, long stretch, especially not in a year as strong on innovation and imagination as the one we've just had.

haha oh wow

There is a big difference between seeing something and considering it game/movie of the year. Sure a lot of people saw Transformers, including me, but a very slim minority of them would actually call it a great movie. And virtually none of the established critics did.

I thought ME2 was pretty much perfect in a lot of ways and was the most polished game experience I've had, and just about anyone who played it would agree. Even if you don't like RPGs or Sci Fi, to discount this game is silly.

I hate racing games with a burning fiery passion, but I wouldn't get butthurt if one came out that everyone loved and was the perfect racing experience and it made a bunch of GOTY lists.

Sorry the game wasn't for Wii, I guess wait for Mass Effect: Chop Till You Drop

This is such a weird list to me. About half of it is exactly what I would vote for. I haven't played Minecraft but I hear good things. I'm kinda tired about all the hubbub surrounding Angry Birds but I haven't played it, so I can't really be "mad" at its placement because it could be pretty fun. But Alpha Protocol and Heavy Rain? I think they're the only two games I have on my "worst games of 2010" list.

Well count me in the vast herds of brainless sheep that somehow loved Mass Effect 2.

A few surprises for me on the list:
God of War 3 ended up kind of low for the critical and fan praise (not saying it should be higher). I wonder if it was something everyone expected to be good, and it was, and we all just totally forgot about it. I know I did until the vote, and that it actually came out last year. February was it? Just didn't have any sticking power I guess. If I think back I remember some pretty amazing shit happening in that game.

Games I think not enough people played: Nier, Infinite Space, Lara Croft:GOL. Particularly Lara - I don't know anyone that has tried that and not loved it (when played co-op). I can pore over stats and spreadsheets for hours and what would be really fascinating to me would be to know what people actually played, and how they voted. For example, if only 22 of us played Infinite Space, and we all had it in our top 20 somewhere (just an example - if you didn't like it that's fine) that would mean something. 999 may be an example of this where "everyone" that played it ranked it.

Also surprised at how bad the PSP was represented. Its top 3 games were 64, 74, 79? Is this kind of a "perception" thing, like your top 10 games for the year would "obviously" be on the consoles/PC? Flip side: was surprised at how well the PC was represented. That could be a bit of bias being this forum's vote as opposed to the general public (i.e. Wii only).

Is Force Unleashed 2 the "biggest" release with the least amount of approval? Holy shit that game did poorly. Is it that bad or is everyone doing what I'm doing and waiting til it's $12 (or less) at the used game store so noone played it yet?

The PSP is really on the outs right now. Oath in Felghana is a fantastic game, but if you consider the amount of people here that own the PSP and then the amount who bought an already niche action RPG, then the odds become microscopic.

Same with Sakura Wars on the PS2. Great game, sent to die on a dead system.

cj iwakura on January 2011

Well, good morning. Welcome to the new scenario. What should we do today?

I think it's a fair representative list, not that shocking though. I loved RDR and Mass Effect, and they charted exactly where I expected them to, either or could've taken 1 or 2 and I'd be cool with it.

I thought Bayonetta would've been a little higher up, but happy to see it crack the top 20. I'm also loving that Deadly Premonition is getting some recognition too.

The PSP is really on the outs right now. Oath in Felghana is a fantastic game, but if you consider the amount of people here that own the PSP and then the amount who bought an already niche action RPG, then the odds become microscopic.

The PSP is really on the outs right now. Oath in Felghana is a fantastic game, but if you consider the amount of people here that own the PSP and then the amount who bought an already niche action RPG, then the odds become microscopic.

Same with Sakura Wars on the PS2. Great game, sent to die on a dead system.

And then ported to the most successful home console of this generation

I thought ME2 was pretty much perfect in a lot of ways and was the most polished game experience I've had, and just about anyone who played it would agree. Even if you don't like RPGs or Sci Fi, to discount this game is silly.

And I repeat:
If your only criteria for considering a game the best of the year was how polished it was, I find that deeply and depressingly dull. What about originality? Creativity? Moving the medium forward in signifcant ways?
Incidentally, I like RPGs, Sci-fi and Mass Effect. I just don't get blown away by them unless they do something interesting. Space opera by-the-numbers isn't interesting.

Minecraft, for instance, would be a perfectly valid GOTY candidate had it actually been released in 2010, and it isn't even a game I much like.

I thought ME2 was pretty much perfect in a lot of ways and was the most polished game experience I've had, and just about anyone who played it would agree. Even if you don't like RPGs or Sci Fi, to discount this game is silly.

And I repeat:
If your only criteria for considering a game the best of the year was how polished it was, I find that deeply and depressingly dull. What about originality? Creativity? Moving the medium forward in signifcant ways?
Incidentally, I like RPGs, Sci-fi and Mass Effect. I just don't get blown away by them unless they do something interesting. Space opera by-the-numbers isn't interesting.

Ur crazy, bro.

I can't think of any other game that is exactly like Mass Effect 2, including the first one.

I'm really pleased but honestly not surprised to see both New Vegas and Alpha Protocol hitting the top 20. While I'm one of those pedestrian, innovation-hating sellouts who loved Mass Effect 2, Obsidian had one hell of a year. The terrible critical and commercial reception Alpha Protocol received, and the death of any hope for an Alpha Protocol 2, is still depressing to contemplate.

After checking out the full spreadsheet, I'm both pleased and surprised that I'm not the only person who voted for Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. While there are a whole host of flaws with K&L2, the unique and well-done "cheap hand-held camera" graphical style goes a long way to elevate the frankly pedestrian gameplay. That and the multiplayer is tied with Bad Company 2 for my "best chaotic multiplayer fun of 2010" award.

Since we're talking about innovation and whatnot, I have to give kudos to Io Interactive for taking such a major risk with K&L2's graphic style, and sticking with it for an entire game and not a wacky novelty level.

Mass Effect 2 was a pretty good game, but I think the reason it was so popular (overall) was because it was much less RPG and a lot more action oriented. Sure you have choices, stats, leveling up, etc., but a lot of it is really simplified. I never played the first one (so I can't compare that way), but I usually compare it to KOTOR1 since that was the last Bioware game I finished.

For example, skill system is incredibly simple and when you max out a skill, and you choose between 2 different versions, most of the time there barely is a difference (attack drone versus exploding one is pretty different though), okay you get 5% more health and 3% less damage if you choose this certain skill over the other, it is not noticeable at all. Samething with gear, might as well not even have it, the percentages that it modifies stats most of the time is like 3% (a couple are 10% I believe), I rarely changed what I was using in Mass Effect 2.

In addition, they make paragon and rebel too obvious. Eventually (unlike KOTOR1) I wasn't picking what I personally would do, I would pick paragon (or rebel, depending how I felt) because I knew paragon options were always at the top or blue and rebel options were at the bottom and red. KOTOR1 was very compelling because they gave you a lot of different options in conversations from what I remember. With that, it is incredibly easy and simple to recruit your party members and get their loyalty. Like an action game, you get the mission, do the mission, and boom, your done. There is zero difficulty in getting someone to join you and rarely any difficulty in obtaining that person's loyalty (all you do is help them with their side mission and you get their loyalty). There are times where two characters go head to head and you have to choose between one or the other, but if you have high enough paragon (or rebel I guess) you can settle it. However, when I played, that only happened twice for me and only the first time I didn't have a high enough paragon to settle it. In KOTOR1, it seemed a lot more interesting to recruit people and some conversations were extremely hard. There was one character, Juhani I believe, where if you couldn't get her to join you, you could end up killing her and never get a chance to recruit her again. Also, near the end of the game at the Dark Jedi temple, there is the ghost of a Dark Jedi that you can talk to and attempt to convince to come back to the light (something like that, I can't exactly remember) and it was an incredibly hard/complex conversation, I never was able to convince him. From my play through, Mass Effect 2 had absolutely nothing like that.

It surprises me that we've had the GotY thread for how many years now and people still don't get the concept that people will vote for games that they enjoyed and the more they enjoyed the game, the higher it will be.

That's not what it's about, but rather that "but a lot of other people like it too!" is a very juvenile argument for justifying your opinions. It basically stops any discussion dead in its tracks because you are no longer discussing the actual merits of the game but rather something that is extraneous to it. If that were the main argument then CODBLOPS should be numer one on every critical list of 2010.

I agree, other people liking a game and voting for it is no reason to have a game win a popularity poll.

That's pretty impressive that a game that technically hasn't been released yet got fourth place for GOTY 2010. But I guess semantics. (Though, what happens when it goes final release build, say, this year?)

As far as this poll is concerned, this is its one shot. If dude ever produces something that we can call a "sequel" it will be allowed in but going from beta->final with the currently advertised feature set will not be enough. Maybe it would have made sense to have waited, but I was afraid that supposed release will never actually come (like what happened with Dwarf Fortress).

The gameplay isn't much to write home about, but I loved the story, visual art, and music ME2 had going on. There's lots to love there, and there's no game on that list without something to complain about.

The real story here is Call of Duty finally getting properly punished for throwing out the same mediocre AI and more or less the exact same MP mode again and again. (Which the developers of Blops didn't even make in the first place!) All the way down to 18! Beaten by Alpha Protocol! That's justice right there.

It surprises me that we've had the GotY thread for how many years now and people still don't get the concept that people will vote for games that they enjoyed and the more they enjoyed the game, the higher it will be.

That's not what it's about, but rather that "but a lot of other people like it too!" is a very juvenile argument for justifying your opinions. It basically stops any discussion dead in its tracks because you are no longer discussing the actual merits of the game but rather something that is extraneous to it. If that were the main argument then CODBLOPS should be numer one on every critical list of 2010.

I agree, other people liking a game and voting for it is no reason to have a game win a popularity poll.

I wasn't talking about polls, but about essentially hollow critical assessments of games straight out of kindergarten like this one:

Mass Effect 2 is a fantastic game. Maybe you don't like it, but that is your opinion, and its a goose opinion because regardless of how much you personally dislike a game, you cannot disregard such an overwhelming majority opinion.

Nintendo sure underperformed given how many of the kind of games they put out that the enthusiasts say they want from Nintendo. I wonder if it's a case of the dated hardware and resolution catching up to the Wii, or if people just don't actually want to play classic Donkey Kong and such all that much when it comes time to lay down the fifty bucks for it.